How does development influence evolution? This book explores the idea that development and evolution interact to make genetic evolution predictable. The early chapters review essential principles from developmental biology and population genetics to provide a foundation for understanding the causes of genetic evolution. The penultimate chapter presents a new way of viewing development―through pathworks―that clarifies the role of development in evolution. The last chapter explores the hypothesis that genetic evolution proceeds in different ways in different kinds of populations. Genetic evolution appears to be somewhat predictable. This predictability emerges from the structure of developmental regulatory networks and from evolutionary processes that occur in populations. Evolution, Development, and the Predictable Genome is intended for students and for more advanced researchers who want to learn about the interaction of evolution and development. The book is written in straightforward prose with specialized terminology explained along the way.

About the Author

David Stern is Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at Princeton University. His research addresses the genetic causes of evolution, and his laboratory is currently focused on the evolution of morphology and behavior.

Praise

"This book is a deep, thoughtful, and timely work from one of the best scientists working in evodevo today. It addresses, as no book has done before, the population genetic forces that shape the evolution of developmental programmes and so the diversity of life on Earth. It builds on solid foundations to produce some novel and important predictions. It is rich in ideas; it is written with unsparing lucidity. It may become a classic."

―Armand Marie Leroi, Professor of Evolutionary Developmental Biology at Imperial College London and author of Mutants.